Have you read about how hard it is to get to Whistler Blackcomb from Washington State?

Canada is building a state-of-the-art customs facility in Whitercock BC, across the border from Blaine WA USA. The lanes are limited to one northbound customs lane before 8:12 AM. There is a 45-120 minute line on the US side waiting to get into Canada. Canada Customs processes entries efficiently, but the line is long.

In the evening the line going north on I-5 backs up south of Blaine, and must be a 3 hour wait. The US will start the same kind of remodel that will have an even worse effect on southbound traffic, and the border at I-5 is going to come to a grinding halt.

But there is more. The traffic through Vancouver is horrible. You can take the secret way from I-5 via the new Hwy 15 under construction that bypasses Vancouver and goes straight to Hwy 1, but Hwy 1 is a major city commute in the morning and is jammed right into town (yes, it has a commuter lane, but…).

Then there is the construction at the Horse Shoe Bay section of Hwy 1 which is a slow down with ferry traffic, only to lead you to the biggest project of all: moving 60 miles of granite mountains to make a 4 lane highway out of a 2 lane highway for the Vancouver Winter Olympics ski/snowboard events. If you are not travelling 30-50 km/hr with RCMP radar most of the way, you are stopped by power line crews, truck traffic, inspection personnel, front loaders, and other construction traffic.

If you think you can get around all that during the day, keep in mind they are blasting at night, and you may stop multiple times in 30 minute lines at each blast site.

Then, of course, there was the truck accident at Squamish that blocked the highway, and made me turn around to get a massage in Vancouver yesterday.

If you have a secret way of getting to Whistler from Seattle in less than 5 hours, leave a comment and I will publish it! Or if you had an experience like I did, then what did you take to make you keep going to Whistler?

FYI, when I cancelled my hotel reservation in the Village, they said they were in the high season pricing time, and that the skiing was excellent on both mountains, nothing but powder (Do you believe that?? I was just planning to ski faux snow runs in the sun, not to go create rock skis).

Sounds good had I kept going, but because of traffic delays, I was pretty sure I was not going to be able to ski Friday before finding a pub in the Village, then spending $149.00 for a room, only to look forward to fighting traffic all the way home, which I did yesterday. Got home 14 hours later (remember I only stopped for a 1 hour massage. I was driving to and from Squamish for 13 hours).